一种抗体可保护猴子不受某种新出现的叫做亨德拉的病毒的感染;这种病毒与最近放映的电影“传染病”中的明星尼帕病毒密切相关。
这些发现使得研究人员距离发现一种保护人体免受这些病毒的感染的方法又接近了一步,因为目前还没有认可的疫苗或治疗方法能够用于尼帕或亨德拉病毒。
亨德拉病毒在正常情况下生活在数个品种叫做狐蝠的蝙蝠体内,而这些蝙蝠对该病毒是有抵抗力的。 然而,这种病毒会在许多其它宿主中造成其肺部和脑部的严重炎症。
自九十年代中、后期,该病毒已经导致一些马匹的死亡,并在澳大利亚造成某些外溢性的人类死亡—这些人与染病的动物有过接触。
类似地,尼帕病毒于1998年出现于马来西亚,它在圈养的猪及其看管者中引起了大规模的爆发,并造成了无数起死亡。 自2001年以来,在孟加拉和澳大利亚几乎每年都会发生尼帕病毒和亨德拉病毒的爆发,其中包括最近这两种病毒在2011年3月和6-7月间的爆发。
Christopher Broder及其同事现在发现,一种人类的单克隆抗体可减少一组猴子的脑和肺中的病毒颗粒量,这些猴子是在得到亨德拉病毒的致命性感染并幸存下来后在迟至三日时接受治疗的(它们在感染后2星期时开始康复)。
在感染后较早获得治疗(1-2天)的猴子保持了完全无病,而没有获得治疗的猴子在感染1周后死亡了。 重要的是,这些动物看来能够良好地耐受这种抗体,并且没有出现什么副作用。这些结果支持人们进一步地研发这种抗体并在人体中进行测试。
一篇有关的焦点文章解释了为什么这些结果为人们提供了可作为激发亨德拉和尼帕病毒的政策讨论及如何最好地保护目标人群的一个起点所需的可靠信息。(生物谷 Bioon.com)
doi:1126/scitranslmed.3002901
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A Neutralizing Human Monoclonal Antibody Protects African Green Monkeys from Hendra Virus Challenge
Katharine N. Bossart, Thomas W. Geisbert, Heinz Feldmann, Zhongyu Zhu, Friederike Feldmann, Joan B. Geisbert, Lianying Yan, Yan-Ru Feng, Doug Brining, Dana Scott, Yanping Wang, Antony S. Dimitrov, Julie Callison, Yee-Peng Chan, Andrew C. Hickey, Dimiter S. Dimitrov, Christopher C. Broder,and Barry Rockx
Hendra virus (HeV) is a recently emerged zoonotic paramyxovirus that can cause a severe and often fatal disease in horses and humans. HeV is categorized as a biosafety level 4 agent, which has made the development of animal models and testing of potential therapeutics and vaccines challenging. Infection of African green monkeys (AGMs) with HeV was recently demonstrated, and disease mirrored fatal HeV infection in humans, manifesting as a multisystemic vasculitis with widespread virus replication in vascular tissues and severe pathologic manifestations in the lung, spleen, and brain. Here, we demonstrate that m102.4, a potent HeV-neutralizing human monoclonal antibody (hmAb), can protect AGMs from disease after infection with HeV. Fourteen AGMs were challenged intratracheally with a lethal dose of HeV, and 12 subjects were infused twice with a 100-mg dose of m102.4 beginning at either 10, 24, or 72 hours after infection and again about 48 hours later. The presence of viral RNA, infectious virus, and HeV-specific immune responses demonstrated that all subjects were infected after challenge. All 12 AGMs that received m102.4 survived infection, whereas the untreated control subjects succumbed to disease on day 8 after infection. Animals in the 72-hour treatment group exhibited neurological signs of disease, but all animals started to recover by day 16 after infection. These results represent successful post-exposure in vivo efficacy by an investigational drug against HeV and highlight the potential impact a hmAb can have on human disease.